oughts. >> i may have misspoken. the three lives that were lost were police officers, one state trooper and two local police officer officers. it doesn't make any difference. it's still great people lost in the line of duty. with the question about what can be done more broadly about them is that even if it was the fbi's lane, we wouldn't discuss it in open forum. we're trying to make sure that our responsibility is to investigate cyber intrusions to the united states to make sure that our government has a full understanding of who's doing what so we can figure out as a country what to do about it. one of the things that we have been involved in is bring criminal charges against some of those actors as part of a toolbox approach to try to change behavior with the chinese. there are a lot of things that are beyond the fbi that i know

has gone on, diplomatic for example, and as part of a lot of international forums. our government is trying to adopt some norms to get the chinese to go along with them. but it is my function the fbi's to understand what they're doing, develop the factings and then show our government here's what we see. >> i understand, you know, that the cyber threat is real and i think congress and the american people are recognizing that it's real and it's clear and present danger. i hope we're doing everything that we can as members of congress to provide your agency as well as others with the resources to counter this threat. because not just illegally downloading music but it's of huge fear that if they engage in some form of cyber attack that it could cripple our critical infrastructure. the last thing i would want to see the the lights go out and your atm doesn't work, your navigation on your car and phone. i think it would cause a huge

amount of panic in our country. you also mentioned something about the siren song of the radical islamist. and these people that you mentioned, we don't really see them. they're not obvious to us to a large extent because they were in their basements consuming this form of poison. can you, i guess lack of a better word, profile what this person would be? is there a certain something about their demographics that make me vulnerable to this poison? i agree, it is a poison and we don't need our young -- we don't need anybody in america consuming it. >> yeah. in a way i wish i could. that's one of the challenge of this threat, is when we talk about travelers the people that we know who have gone to syria to hook up withize l range from

18 to 62. they're from any part of the country, any background. they were either raised in islamic faith or are converts who then -- but they may have all different kinds of back yound, be all different places in the state, consume this and develop the view that this is how they find meaning in the life. the one come on characteristic they have is they are people who are troubled souls seeking meaning in life. there's not a poverty marker, right? some of them have jobs. they just have a misguided sense that they node to participate in the apock lippic battle. some are losers who have had trouble with petty crimes. but there's not a pattern. we've studied it very closely in search of the pattern but so far i can't offer you one. >> thank you. >> briefly on the point about china, the back door, a trojan

horse can be created into a computer system with a piece of software that you might be able to detect or it can be hard wired into a computer device a computer chip as a piece of hardware and it's invisible and you can't see it. the problem is so bad with the chinese general and these chinese owned companies in australia, the australian government prohibited recently the purchase of any telecommunications equipment by any governmental entity in australia. let me recognize at this time mr. aderholt and the state of alabama. >> thank you mr. chairman. good to be here today and for this hearing. thank you for mentioning what we do down in alabama. we appreciate the -- huntsville and also in birmingham. i met with some of the folks from the birmingham facility

just recently. and one of the things that we talked about whereby they had mentioned to me was that the new iphone, new iphone 6s have an encryption in it that you can't get into the -- they're encrypted and there's no back door key. and just wanted to know what -- and of course this is different from their predecessors. the other phones they were able to get into. what is the fbi position on apple and google's decision to encrypt these smartphones? >> we have a huge problem where we in latew enforcement when we have court processes judges issue search warrants we're unable to execute on those orders. and because the device is locked or the communications are encrypted. and so we're drifting to a place

where a whole of of people are going to look at us with tears in their eyes and say what do you mean you cant? my daughter is missing. what do you mean you can't tell me who she was texting with before she disappeared. maybe that's where we want to go but i think we have to have a conversation in this country about where we're going. i don't want back doors. i want with court process the ability to gather evidence after i've shown probable cause to believe on that device is evidence of a crime the fourth amendment is clearly in play and i follow it and get authority. we need to discuss if we're going to a place where we can't get access. we're discussing it. these are important in domestic violence cases, child exploitation, car wrecks and i don't know what the answer is. but it's something we have to talk about. >> so you know, you mentioned about the mother shows you the phone and say you can't get into it. what programs has it affected

and can you just let us know the damage that it's done to the fbi? >> yeah. it's a feature of -- we've encountered it in drug cases. all of our work we've encountered it. i'm not in a position to offer percentage or a number. but sit a feature now, an obstacle in a huge number f 0 our criminal nfls gagsinvestigations. i've heard tech investigators say privacy should be a virtue. try to examine what that world looks like. pedophiles can't be seen drug dealers can't be seen. i hear it as you heard from the folks in birmingham i hear it all over the country, we're drifting to a place and not talking about it. >> do you need additional resources to work on this? what can we as this committee do or congress do to help you with this? >> i think one of the things that the administration is working on right now is what

would a legislative response look like that would allow us again, not in a sneaky way but with court process to get access to the evidence. it's complicated because it involves communications carriers and device makers. bup ultimately it's going to require a legislative fix that if you want to do business in the country, we're about the rule of law but we don't want speeches that have without the law. we're getting to a place where these huge spaces are beyond the reach of court authority and i think it's going to take a legislative fix. >> it's not a matter of resources, it's really a legislative fix that this needs to be dealt with? >> i think we as a democracy need to figure out. what are the trade offs associated with the private cities and how do we reconcile them. it's really hard but it's not splitting the adam.

we do hard stuff and i think it's a conversation we have to have. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> the chairman asked a great question. i would like for you to talk to us about that court case that came out of the supreme court recently where the phone was seized as part of a routine police arrest and the police picked up the phone and looked at it and the guy said you can't look at it. the talk to us a little bit about that case and what can we do. can't apple see what's on here under a court order? >> no. iphone 6 is designed to apple is unable to unlock it. so it becomes the safe-deposit box with no second key. it's very, very -- >> let me add there if i understand, was apple voluntarily made this decision to fix it so the user is able to lock it and they're not able? >> that's correct.

and apple, i'm not trying to pick on the folks at apple or google. they're responding to competitive pressures. people want to have a zone of privacy. and so do i. but to have a zone of privilegecy that's outside the reach of the law is concerning. but mr. chairman with respect to the court case the fbi, our practice has been to get search warrants for devices. that makes good sense to me especially given that i don't have a phone with me. all of our lives are there. it's a suitcase carrying your kids' pictures and your documents. there was good sense to me in the supreme court's reasons that this is difference than it used to be so it should have fourth amendment implications. if i want to look at your phone without your consent, i logo to the judge make a showing of probable cause and take a look at it. >> if i could follow up with one more question.

have you heard of there's a rumor that apple has made an agreement with china about this as a precondition to selling their phones there. >> i don't know anything about that. >> thank you. >> judge carter has dealt with this quite a bit as a district court judge. i recognize the colleague from texas, chairman carter. there is a way forward, right? so if life or liberty is in jeopardy and my daughter is missing, i want you to get into the phone. if it's a matter that doesn't involve life or liberty, i'm interested in the right to privacy and the protection for people's personal papers and so on. we can find our way forward and i think that the director is correct that there may need to be legislative activity that kind of -- because the people that we represent have some interest in privacy.

and which is why these companies are trying to produce a product that gives them that privacy. but we also need to protect public safety. if there's a terrorist that has a bomb and you need to track where they have via their cell phone, we want to be able to do it. we have to find the wisdom of solomon, which is good why the judge is up next. >> you're not going to get away from me that way. i'm chairman of homeland security appropriations. i serve on defense subcommittees. we have all of the national defense issues with cyber. and now, sir, cyber is pounding me from every direction. and every time i hear something something pops into my head -- because i don't know anything about this stuff. if they can do that to a cell phone, why can't they do that to every computer in the country and nobody can get u into it.

if that's the case, isn't there a solution to the invaders from around the world that are trying to get in here. and then if that gets, the wall, and even the law can't penetrate it then aren't we creating an instrument as the perfect tool for lawlessness? this is a very interesting conundrum that's developing in the law. at their own will at microsoft, can put something -- or at apple put something in that computer which is what it is to where nobody but that owner can open it, then why can't they put it in the big giant super computers that nobody but that owner can open it and everything gets locked away secretly. and that sounds like a solution to this great cyber attack problem we've got. but in turn, it allows those who would do harm to have a great tool to do harm where law enforcement can't reach it.

this is a problem that's got to be solved. and if you're following the bill of rights, you have every right to be able to go before a judge, present your probable cause and if he sees that that's right get a warrant and get into that machine. and i don't think there's a right of privacy issue in the world that prevents you following the law to do that. and so if that's what they've created, they've created a monster that will harm law enforcement, national security and everything else in this country. and this really needs to be addressed. and i wasn't going to talk about that but that upsets the heck out of me. i don't think that's right. >> judge, if i could ask you about, and director coleman, if you had a case in front of you where you had evidence that there was evidence in a crime in a safe that was locked and only the owner had the combination to the safe, how would you handle that that? if they bring in an affidavit with probable cause and i find that they've got probable cause,

we're going to give them the right to make the search. and if he's made it search proof and even the guy that created the monster can't get in there, that's bad policy. >> there's no safe like that in the world. >> you can crack a safe right? you get a court order and go crack the safe. >> that's right. but if you can't crack the safe which is what they've created here that's a real crisis. >> the analogy seems valid. it's like a safe that's locked up holding evidence of a crime. >> those issues of privacy are protected by that bill of rights. >> yeah. >> i knew we would find wisdom from the judge. >> the question i would ask them is, the distinction i would ask to the chair to the administrator is this that get a court order, the court order would be a court order for

hardline. you could get a court order for tapping the line. we can now get a court order to tap into information that's used with a digital phone. accessing information in a digital phone that thaz what we might want to call our intelligence also, accessing that would be like accessing a person under oath, any information that they may have inside of them. so we may have to look at the kind of legislation that equates our intelligence in trying to access our own privacy. so there would be a sanction if we lie under oath. and if we have a choice now of opening up our own phone and even the company can't do that yeah, i would just try to make a distinction -- >> i am yielding my time.

let him talk. he's a nice guy. >> thank you. i'm trying to make a distinction between the kinds of laws that we write and author, in one set of technology, when we're looking at artificial intelligence and we're looking at another kind of technology where we can make safe our own information, accessing that is going to have to have another kind of -- another level of thought like we had to do with the accessing and tapping into technology. let safe is still the old technology -- [ inaudible ] >> if you have access to a phone that the individual who bought it can open up, that you can have certain kinds of force of law that would require them to be able to testify -- >> it's an interesting question. forgive us, judge. >> i just wanted to raise that. >> thank you, judge.

>> it really is a really interesting conversation that we started here and i'm glad to get the judge's wisdom on this. >> the other question i wanted to ask you, last time we were here you said one of the things you were concerned about is am i going to be able to get in the workforce the quality of people that i need in this cyber war that we're facing. how are you doing on being able to recruit the intelligent workforce that it takes to go off in the special area of national security and crime? how effective have you been since our last conversation? one of the things you expressed last time you were here and i wanted to give you a chance to say how effective you've been and what can we do to make you more effective? >> thanks, judge. pretty good. but it's too early for me to give you a high confidence read. i've, crawling out of my hole from sequestration. we've been hiring lots of people. so far so good and they're

staying. once you get to do public service, it becomes addictive, even if a lot of other companies are throwing a lot of dough at you. folks are getting in and realizing it's fun to do good for living. it's early. we should talk again in a year when i have a fuel two years of data. >> this is not only the issue you've got but homeland security is looking at this issue too. one of the question has come up for us to discuss is what are the opportunities to contract with these people who have these firms that all they do is this kind of work and maybe is that something that government can do effectively and safely protecting government's interest, subcontract some of the work to the great computer wizards of our world. that's something we need to be thinking about and we're looking at it right now in homeland security, as to whether or not that is a safe and appropriate thing to do, to subcontract.

that's something you might think about. i was in a room full of smart people yesterday morning for breakfast and i understood about every fifth word. thank you. >> thank you, judge. >> it's complicated. it's an incredibly complex universe of computer out there. i'll recognize the state of washington, ms. butler. >> i have three pieces here and i'm going to make them as brief ooze possible. i appreciate your time. i'm going to start with -- i'm going to start on a different track and come back to cyber. why not mix it up. actually this does have a relation. in your submitted testimony you mentioned the internet facilitated sexual exploitation of charn anz evolving threat that your agency is facing. there are thousands of children every year through sites like back page.com and other internet

sites that are sold. backpage and other sites have acknowledged the existence of prostitution and sexual exploitation and of minors on their sites and these sites are a accomplices of basically promoting prostitution and exploitation of minors. i want to know where the fbi -- has the fbi prosecuted any of these companies for knowingly permitting the exploitation of girls and young women on their sites? >> it's a great question and a really important question because you're right. we're seeing an explosion of the abuse of kids through the internet and the sell of kids through the internet. the answer is yes. we've prosecuted the people behind an outfit i think called redbook that was in california. we locked up the proprior tore running it one one of these backpage.com outfits and that shut down the site. so yes, we have.

>> follow up. since the online facilitated sexual exploitation of children is a prioritized threat, help me understand your allocation to that area of investigations and how does the internet against crimes program fund fit into that? >> we have task forces that focus on this -- i'm going to forget the number, but it's more than my number of field offices. we have two in some event. we do this in every field office we do an operation called operation cross country where we work with state and local partners because it connect to the cyber stuff. a lot of the ways in which we find the people that are going to exploit kids are through the advertisements where we try to take down in a swoop a bunch of these people, rescue the kids and lock up -- i hate the word pimp because it sounds like a '70s comedy thing.

these are slaifrers. we lock up the slavers. i'll have to get back to you on the second part of your question where the internet crim against children fits in. >> i'm glad you mentioned that operation cross country because i think the demand size -- you know, a lot of the work that we've been doing at a state level is changing the perception. we've been much more successfully here federally. these are victims young children who have been brought into this slavery, form of slavery trafficked and exploited. and what we have -- now we're turning our eyes to how do we beat the demand. how are these people prosecuted. there's nothing more frustrating than knowing a 17 or 16-year-old girl who has been prosecuted is the one that faces the criminal penalty and a john walks free. it is infuriating to me. so your foe focus on the demand side, both these portals that

the criminals are using. and i agree pimp has almost been romanticized in some areas, which is pathetic. but these johns, the shaverslavers need to be the focus. some of the people who are buying these children are people that at times are amongst us. switching -- and we're going to continue to focus. so we may continue and follow up with your staff and your team. cyber, this is my last question. premera blue cross in washington state had a real serious cyber taye tack last may by the company did not discover the branch until january of this year. an upon the advice of the fbi and a cybersecurity firm, the company waited until march 17th to provide notification of the attack. about 11 million customers

nationwide and about 6 million in washington state, including my constituents may have been compromised. so i guess i want to hear why did the -- why would the fbi recommend they wait to make that information public when we're talking about names, addresses, telephone number social security numberance in some cases medical history banking data, so on and so forth. >> thank you for that. i don't know the facts enough to know if it was january to march. but we do sometimes ask companies to hold off for a little while so we don't alert the bad guys. as soon as it becomes public whoever is doing it goes under grown. >> i would assume that's a 24-hour or two-day -- from the previous briefings that we've had with the cybersecurity kwigs, that's not a two-month window. if it is we're not doing something right. >> the two-month window seems odd to me but it's mrn than a 24 hour. it's a search for the ground zero computer to see if we can

find the digital dust is from where the bad guys entered. and in a huge company sometimes that takes mar than a 24-hour period. two month i don't really understand. >> i would love a follow-up on that. that greatly concerns me. thank you. i yield back. [ inaudible ] >> thank you for being here today. sitting here listening to these discussions all over the place, i have an almost ten-year-old and a six-year-old. and the thought of one of my children going missing and you not being able to do anything about it because of what we already discussed is terrifying. but i can say this. thank you for the work that you do for our country and i appreciate the challenges that you have. i'm new to the subcommittee. so i, too, am not an expert in cybersecurity by any stretch.

it's like going to school every day to learn more about what you do and the challenges you face. i was in huntsville, i know you touched on birmingham and i know you mentioned huntsville. when i wasn't here. but it was great to be at the new tdot facility. they're like delivering furniture. it was not complete pd. there's no bodies there yet and even some of the equipment. but it was fascinating for me to learn about what they're doing. this is the terrorists explosive device analytical center. and i also had the chance to stop by the hazardous devices school which is great as well, where they train local law enforcement. so i guess what i wanted to talk to you about some of the things that they mentioned as a challenge was personnel

recruitment. just nationally it's difficult to find individuals that have the expertise to be able to do this type of analysis on ieds. i wanted to talk about your budget request and where you see any shortfalls in personnel for this new facility. and you know what -- how we can make this vital center a reality. >> thank you so much for that. i too visited there in the last eight weeks. and they were just -- i could smell the fresh paint. very exciting. because it will make a big difference. it will save lives. that place will literally save lives. the answer is i think we're doing okay in terms of recruiting and hiring back. we were down many many, many vacancy slots in the fbi as a result of sequestration. we hired about 2400 people last year. i'm trying to hire 3,000 this year.

and then my budget request this year is simply about being able to sustain that. i don't think i'm going to have a problem staffing t dak. i'm going to transfer people and i actually went down and met with the staff at quantico and said wait until you visit huntsville. you'll think i don't want to be sent to huntsville. wait until i try to get you out of huntsville. i don't think we're going to have a problem. it sounds like a corny thing to say. i'm lucky enough that the fbi has justifiably a very strong identity in american life. people want to work for the fbi athey want to do the kind of work we're doing in huntsville. folks are banging down the door. i advertise for special agents and i get 20,000 applications in two weeks. i think we're going to be okay there. >> and that's great to hear. talking about the hazardous devices school i forget what they call it but the staging

areas. >> the villages. >> yeah. >> we blow stuff up in the villages. >> they're wanting to expand that. it's an expensive, expensive school to operate because of what they're doing. but and the equipment that they use. so if you could talk about that a little bit. >> there's such a demand for that. again, that is as you said, where we the fbi train all state and local bomb teches in the united states. there are thousands of bomb technicians in the united states. they're all certified and trained at the hazardous devices school. but to be trained effectively you need to work with buildings that have a real feel to them. that's what the villages are. >> they put the church next to the liquor store. >> they just showed me the church. they didn't show me the liquor store. >> well they try to say it was like alabama. i wasn't going to accept that.

>> thanks to the support of this committee and on the senator side we've gotten the funding to build an additional number of villages. six additional villages and people shouldn't think that's a whole new town. it's a little cluster of buildings. that will enable us to meet the demand. the military abz it's downsizing is shrinking its commitment to the hazardous devices school. we're using the support we've gotten from congress to try to make sure that we staff up to make sure that we stay the same. i think we're going to be okay there was the verdict i got when i was there. >> again, thank you for the important work that you do and everybody that's with you on your team. we appreciate your commitment to our country and our safety. thank you. >> thank you. i wanted if i could to follow up on one of the questions that chairman rogers brought up about foreign fighters. director comey we have seen

estimates as many as 20,000 have traveled from 90 countries to travel and fight to syria about 150 americans who have traveled to syria and iraq to fight with isis and other terrorists groups. could you talk to the committee -- and this i recognize is an unclassified set -- about your ability to be able to identify and keep track of these folks and the americans that may be traveling over there and what can this subcommittee do to help you deal with the threat? >> thank you, mr. chairman. it's a big feature of the work and enormously challenging. the number of 150 is the approximate number of americans who have travelled to syria in connection with the conflict. some have gone for humanitarian reasons, some have gone due to associate with isil or other groups. so one of our challenges is, even with those we've identified, try to understand so what they are doing there. not everybody who is going there went there to be a terrorist but we treat them all like they are

and we cover them like a blanket when we come back until we understand it. our challenge is trying to make sure that with our partners in the intelligence community and our foreign partners, we have the trip wires in place to spot americans who might be going toward that area of the world but heading towards syria. there are thousands of americans every day that fly towards right, the mediterranean, fly towards turkey for all manner of reasons. we need the help of our partners to spot those who might be transiting turkey. the turks have been a big help us to there and that relationship has gotten increasingly good. but then here at home to challenge to come back to state and local law enforcement is i'm not highly confident that 150 is 150 is 175 so i'm only missing 25 or 150 of 300. i just don't know. because again it's so difficult in a wonderful free country like ours to know who might be

traveling with bad purpose. that's where it comes into the research we do online to spot them and our relationship with state and local law enforcement. >> we have the benefit of judge carter being here talking to us, how much tsa and home security doing? how are they working with you? what recommendations would you make to the chairman that anything homeland needs to be doing. >> i think we're in a goods place with respect to cvp. they're on the joint terrorist task force and the national ter ryce task force. we all recognize they have the eyes at the border, outbound and inbound. we're lashed up with them very closely. one of the lessons of the boston marathon bombing was we need to make sure we're even more effective to working with them. the key partner turns out to be cvp and i don't have a

recommendation for improvement on that right now. >> my understanding judge and direct, is that the united states didn't have the ability to track visas. if they overstay on visa, we're not doing a ooh good job of tracking these guys. >> we don't have an exit policy right now. if they overstay a visa, they can know they're overstaying it but they don't know if they've left or not. that's a real problem. >> that's why i was asking the question. >> but that's not really where he's coming from. working together i think there's a good, good working relationship between the agencies and the fbi and others. our guys are doing a pretty decent job on the law enforcement side of it. we need an exit policy but it's going to cost them start counting in billions of dollars when we start doing it and that's one of the problems we've got in this particular environment we're living in right now. >> but you can spot them when they leave the country if you've

flagged their visa, you think they might be a problem, they leave the country, homeland security is able to share that information. >> we don't have an exit policy right now. we don't know. >> but if we have an interest with someone, we share that with cvp. >> then we track the individual. we do that every day. but just the average joe that flies over here on a plane for a vacation, if he stays -- >> or overstays. >> we don't know that he didn't leave. he could have left. we don't necessarily know whether he left or didn't leave. >> yeah. we have -- i know also the patriot act connelling up for renewal at the end of may. it will expire. and our con tich wents, or rightly, all of us have an interest in protecting the privacy of law abiding americans as i know you do well. remembering benjamin franklin's, those who trade a little liberty

for information will end up with neither. that's an important lesson for us to remember. can you talk to us, and also the americans watching today, the protections that the patriot act devil dell delves into. and that suitcase that we all have with us. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> and how important the patriot act is to you. >> i tell a lot of folks when u talk about this in public americans should be skeptical about government power. i tell my british friends it's because of you people that we built it the way we built it. you can't trust people in power. i'm a nice person, i'm an honest person, you snould not trust me. you should want to know how is it design of the founders alive

in my life. the patriot act is a great example. if we want to get someone's business records using our authority under section 215 we have to go to a federal judge and get that authority and then make a report to congress about how we're using section 215 and we discuss it in oversight hearings. the legislative judicial and executive are working together. and then my work on 215 and all of our patriot act authorities are audited by the attorney general. i mean these great. it's burdensome but that's the way it should be. there are judges there is oversight in every piece of the work that we do. the reason that the patriot act authorities matter so much, especially two that i'll mention, section 213 is the authority that allows us to go to judges and get authority to get documents or tangible things or records. if that expires and we lose that authority, we will have a gap in our ability to respond to spies

and terrorists that i request not fill with grand jury subpoenas or some other manner of process. that's very worryisomeworrisome. and the second i mention is roving wire taps. in criminal cases if a drug dealer is swapping phones, as they frequently do a judge can issues an order that allows us to follow the person so we don't lose him. the patriot act gave us that authority when we're fighting spies and terrorist. pi think i people would want us to have the same authority in spy and terrorist ucases. so i think those are sensible things. the challenges it just took me two minutes to explain it and often people nod and say it's terrible what the patriot act as done. i hope folks don't do that. >> also for people to know that mr. snowden is no hero.

can you talk in an open setting of why penal should not think of him as a hero? >> i don't want the say too much because i hope mr. snowden will realize that the greatest country in the world has the fullest and freest criminal system no the world and he'll avail himself for the rights and opportunities of being able to defend himself in our criminal justice system if he'll leave russia and come walk here. i want him to get a fair trial. those who want to describe someone like that as a hero need to take the corpus of his work and hug the whole thing. >> remember he carried out how many laptops? >> a lot of records. and so you need to look at the entire damage to our ability to track terrorists to track spies, all of the work -- the whole corpus of work has to be looked at together. >> thank you for the extra time, members. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> the bill has a number on it

but the doj portion thereof you're seeking 8$8 billion. we have another part of the budget that's been grug. it's grew from $1 billion to $7 billion. it's the federal prison budget. and it's a big concern because the federal prison system is gobbling up this budget that this committee has discretion over. and there's a sense that the country incars rates people that don't need to be incarcerated. we incarcerate more people than any other country in the world. and so we set up a commission that's got two former members leading it j.c. out of oklahoma and alan mull la hand out of west virginia. we put some experts op it, including the head of corrections from the state of pennsylvania which i think was a very wise choice.

and they are looking at what it is that we might be doing about something that we kind of call justice reinvestment. what with withcan we do to move away with things that are not working, the overemphasize on incarceration. and to move it some other direction. and there are some states that have been at the very forefront actually looking at some very aggressive activities particularly in terms of the juvenile system. i'd be very interested in your view about who the country you know -- somebody said here i can't remember who, people done something we don't like we shouldn't fear and people we fear we should put in jail. i would be interested in the lead law enforcement official in the country, what is you view about this problem in the country and what we should do about it? >> it's something i've spent a lot of my life thinking about.

and i'm still not sure i'm expert enough to be useful to you. here's my take on it. i think we can always be smarter about how we incarcerate and use the course of aspects of the criminal justice system. i think we can be a whole lot better in preparing people to reenter society. that's something we as a country have done a very poor job of. i want to make sure that if i'm involved in an effort like that that i'm thoughtful about what connection if any is there between the incarceration rate and the fact that we have low levels of crime. i wouldn't want to do anything where we say 20 years from now we say geez, we really got that wrong because we achieved a level of production that was unprecedented. a lot of people smarter than i should think about that. and the second thing i want to be data driven. who are the people who are in jail in federal prison and why are they there and what are the risks associated with them. the reason i say that is oftentimes i hear people talk

about the nonviolent drug offenders in federal prison. i've never put anyone there by that description. and i can't find a lot of federal prosecutors athat. there may be a lot of folks like that but i want to make sure that the data is krub. i want to be effective. >> this is almost an equal part to our budget of what your request is now. and at one point it was at $1 billion. and the number of inmates actually has, as the crime rate nationwide nationwide, number of inmates has gone down, the crime rate is going down. a lot of that action is at the state level though not necessarily where we are. let me move on to a different subject. the committee would be interested in your thoughts as we go through this process and as the recommendations from the group comes back. so sandy hook took place a

little while ago. but it was a tragedy. and there are, you know, every year not just the loss of police officers, there are literally, i mean, thousands and thousands of americans just being shot and killed. and the access to firearms which the supreme court has said people have a constitutional right to and that's the law of our land, as a law enforcement official, how do you, you know and ty jones is leaving as the head of one of your sister agencies. what's your thought about what we should be doing or thinking about as a nation vis-a-vis the question of firearms? >> another big hard question. probably all aspects of that are beyond my expertise and my authority except for one piece. i've spent a lot of my life as a prosecutor trying to make sure

that criminals were deathly afraid of getting caught with a gun. and that if a criminal is caught obviously committing a crime with a gun or just possessing it, there are severe consequences. i've long believed that most homicides are happenstance homicides. what would otherwise be a fistfight or a rock fight becomes a shootout because the gun is an article of clothing. it's there in the waistband. and that if we can make the criminal -- criminals are very good at rational confrontations. we did in richmond virginia an effort to drive into the criminal mind that you should be afraid -- you should think more about your gun than about your socks and shoes when you get dressed to go out and deal drugs. and i think that's very effective. i am a big supporter not a big part of the fbi's work of

maniacale enforcement of felony possession, drug dealer possession. but there's no excuse for a criminal to have one. none. >> one last question mr. chairman. there has been a lot of debate here on the hill about prosecution of people you've locked up as terrorists. as best i can tell there have been in incidents, no issues. these prosecutions have proceeded during the normal course and justice has been served. is that your sense of this? is there something -- i mean we have this debate the administration wants to close kwan guantanamo and get out of the business of incarcerating people without a trial, just incarcerateing without having any due process because they think it's a problem for our country internationally. is there any concern you have about the ability of our court systems to handle these cases? >> distinguishing between

foreign nationals captured on the battlefield overseas versus an american citizen. >> it us just about the effectiveness of the criminal justice system own my experience? >> i'm not trying to get you in the middle of this. whether or not there should be any concern from our standpoint as a country that our court system is capable of prosecuting -- >> no. none. that doesn't mean that end the policy conversation. but in my experience our courts are very good at offering people a fair trial and then incapacitateing them for the rest of their lives in a safe way. >> thank you. >> expertly done. i'll be sure to recognize mr. p.o.l.a.z.o. mr. honda. >> thank you mr. chairman. i appreciate your flexibility and the judge's flexibility too. i have a real quick question.

in 2016 my area will be hosting the super bowl. and in the past three four years probably, we've been tracking the super bowl activity activities in terms of human trafficking. in that light you have the transnational organizeds crime addressing trafficking of women and children internationally, you also have a discussion around the child sex tourism initiative and addressing child -- instead of saying prostitution, i just said child sex slavery. prostitution has another connotation in my mind. is there staff that we can collaborate with and speak with to anticipate the 2016? we're already working on cyber systems with our local entities

in terms of light rail, high speed rail and those kinds of activities in airports. it would be great if we can work with some of your staff to check and double-check the kinds and double-check on the kind of things we're doing and see if there is anything else we can do -- collaborate. >> i'm sure we can, mr. honda. this is something we have a lot of expertise and practice in. all aspects of the threats around the super bowl, but we do do -- we can equip you with that. we do a lot of work around super bowl events. in fact, i would tell people, come to the super bowl for all kinds of good reasons. if you're coming to try to pick up kids or prostitution involving children, we'll be there and we'll be looking to lock you up. so, we'll get you what you need to that. >> we would like to look at public education and engaging the other agencies to be aware and trained on visual kinds of surveillance, too. so it would be greatly

appreciated. >> sure. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> judge carter. >> thank you chairman. let's have a judge/prosecutor discussion here. >> i'm too rough. >> i'm not a law professor but this is the kind of thing we're going to have to think about. we're telling our industry, okay, the cyber attacks are real. they're coming. home depot got attacked. sony got attacked. just heard about blue cross getting attacked. you've got to build your for the. part of our plan for cyber security is to tell industry build a fort, be prepared. we're helping you, assisting you, be prepared. now, one of the attacks is a criminal act an attack of war, an interesting debate to have. i'm going to ask everybody in the cyber field, what's your opinion of when a cyber attack

escalates above a criminal activity and becomes an attack -- an act of war? most people say, that's a policy decision. i understand, that's a good cop-out. but just a discussion. it's an interesting discussion. but then there's even more interesting thing because what you'll have ultimately almost we're going back to the middle ages. we're building a bunch of little forts around our industry. some of these forts are going to be pretty powerful. i would bet the fort around microsoft is going to be extremely powerful. the fort around apple is going to be extremely powerful. not only powerful in defending themselves from an attack outside, but they will actually have the ability to counterattack. and when they counterattack, they can start an international incident. that's a question we have to ponder because we are as a government promoting them to build a fort. and that fort's nothing more

than build your own castle and protect your castle. there's some that are going to be always able to be in the defensive posture. but those are the offensive capability may go offensive. and from a criminal justice system, we have to decide, has that person gone too far. just like the security guard that protects -- uses his gun in the protection of the bank or so forth. some of it's going to be self-defense. maybe some of it's not. we have to make that determination. we may have to make that determination in the cyber world at some time in the future if a private entity protecting its own property, decides to counterattack, cyber attack, which we certainly have the ability to do, at least we presume we do as a government. then you have to presume some of these big monster tech

industries have the ability to counterattack. how is that going to affect us in the criminal -- the world of criminal justice, or have you ever thought about that? >> i've thought about it. from private sector where i was before coming up to this great job and on the government side the answer is we as a country can't allow it, right? it's against the law. in my view is it should remain against the law. it's great to build a fort. if you start throwing rocks off the parapit or start throwing barrels of oil down, it can have knock-on effects that are very hard to predict. it is unlawful for a private entity to hack back. and it makes good sense to me. but i also agree there's a crying need from a lot of enterprise for our government then to fill that space. and that is a harder policy question. but we can't have each of these castles start throwing stuff out into the square. that public space is a place

where the government ought to be operating. >> i agree with you. but if you look at the dark ages, that's exactly what happened. france couldn't control the individual castles. england couldn't control the individual castles. caused all sorts of turmoil in the middle ages. argueably we could go to the cyber middle ages. because the government is pretty mostly -- and right now we're taking care of the government. in some instances we're taking care of our body politic of commerce. but the individual person with the ownership has got to protect their own. and i think that on the horizon we have real issues because the government has to come in and say, how far can this person go to protect their own? if they develop an ability, for instance -- and i'm making this

up because i don't know anything about cyber -- that where the minute -- community you're attached to all over the world, somebody comes up with that, that's going to be a very large offensive tool that somebody could use. it's a question the government has to start thinking about because it's a big deal. at some point that's an act of war. then the government has to defend the individual's property. if they bombed microsoft or bombed the exxonmobil building in dallas, i think we'd be -- fly an airplane, dropped a bomb, we would call it an act of war. we get to the point where it's an act of war by basically destroying that business. that's a tough question. >> yes, it is. >> and we in the criminal justice system have to think about it and our professors back

in law school have to think about it. we have to come up with a solution. >> as a criminal justice analog in the old west, those kalss todaycastles today, no doubt about that. >> sure.

>> and to follow up a little on the jooushgsz . >> if the safe is uncrackable and either the owner cannot or will not open it, as a general rule, does the company that built the safe have the ability to open the safe? is there any requirement with a physical safe that they be -- the company that built the safe open it? do they have the ability to open it? is there any legal requirement? how did that work, judge, and director? >> i don't know about a legal requirement. with a court order we could always get information from the manufacturer or we just blow the door off. >> the manufacturer could tell you. >> i've got to go. i want to thank you for what you do. we're proud of the fbi and all the good work you do. thank you. >> thank you, judge. that is absolutely true. i won't keep you too much longer but you could either blow the

safe or in your experience the manufacturer always had the ability to open it in some way, shape or form. >> yeah. i'm hesitating because i don't know i've seen a circumstance where we've used lawful practice to compel a manufacturer to give us assistance. >> just drill it or blow it. >> yeah. >> because that's another problem we have to -- again, protecting people's privacy. if you have evidence of a crime locked up in that suitcase, how in the world do you get at it? let me ask about -- before we wrap up and i'll follow up with other questions for the record. the importance of information-sharing with the inspector general. it's a question that's ongoing with every agency under our jurisdiction. the inspector generals have a vital role in notifying us of -- that they do audits. and if the -- if the inspector general is ever denied access, they have to notify the

committee. we've gotten several notices from the inspector general. i know we mentioned this to you and your folks before about fbi's failure to comply with the access to information requirement. and i know that the fbi has disagreement on what the law requires. and mr. fattah and i have both written a letter to the attorney general asking the office of legal counsel to resolve a particular matter, i think involving whistle-blowers to resolve this matter as quickly as possible. i would just like to ask you, sir, what steps are you taking to ensure the inspector general gets the information they need in a timely manner? and what, if any, conflict of interest may there be in the -- in the agency being investigated by the inspector general being in a position to decide what information the inspector general needs? particularly since the inspector general has, as you did as a prosecutor, the ability to review things in a confidential matter and in camera so to speak, as a judge would, since

the inspector general has criminal investigative authority and can maintain the confidentiality of that information, shouldn't the i.g. be the one, or can you work with them in a confidential behind closed door manner to help them get what they need? what are you doing to help them get the information they need in this case? >> it's an important

>> i also don't want to be us just willie nilly turning over stuff that might be protected under these statutes. if someone says you were told by the general counsel you were to do this. the other thing i'm doing in the meantime is just trying to speed up our business processes so that we just do whatever we think we have to do in law much more quickly. >> i'm interested in getting it done in a timely fashion. what are you doing to help expedite the process so the inspector general can get the information they need to do their job? >> i think that is literally a question of building better business processes to quickly review and copy and produce and search for information. i won't go into all the boring details. but i have an internal consultant shop that are again yus at business processes. i put them on that saying, figure out how to do this faster. like building cars do this much

more effectively. i think you'll see dramatic improvement there. that's not going to solve this legal question, but i think i can solve the business process. then if i can get the leadership, the department of justice to solve the legal question, then it will all be -- it won't all be love with the i.g. but it will be in a much better place. >> i also on behalf of the subcommittee, the people of texas that i'm proud to represent, want to express our deep gratitude to you for your service and the men and women of the fbi and all you do to keep us safe while protecting our privacy and very precious constitutional rights as law-abiding americans. we're your best backup. there's no better backup for a law enforcement officer than an american using their own common sense, their good judgment and good hearts. by the way, you mentioned earlier about criminals with guns. i doubt you've ever had a problem with a conceal carry permit holder who is licensed with a background check using their good judgment. i'm not aware of any problems with texans that are list encensed.

could you comment on that -- >> i haven't had problems with that. >> as a conceal carry permit? >> not that i recall. >> that's a law enforcer's best backup, particularly if he's a texan. thank you for your service to the country. we'll submit any further questions to the record. and the hearing is adjourned. thank you.

if you missed any of this hearing with fbi director comey you can watch it in our video library, c-span.org. we're back on capitol hill tomorrow with a hearing with homeland security director jeh johnson he's testifying about his department's budget request for 2016. we'll have that live beginning at 9 a.m. eastern here on c-span3. also tomorrow energy secretary earnest moniz will testify about the obama administration's energy review.

the review looks at the development and implementation of policies governing energy resources and consumption. that's at 9:30 and will be streaming live on our website, c-span.org. here are some of our featured programs for this weekend on the c-span networks. on c-span2's book tv saturday at 10 p.m. eastern on afterwords author peter wallison says government housing policies caused the 2000 financial crisis and it could happen again. sunday afternoon at 5:00, director of the earth institute at columbia university jeffrey sax on a development plan like poverty, political corruption. saturday morning at 10:30 eastern on american history tv on c-span3 a discussion on the last major speeches of abraham lincoln and martin luther king jr. then sunday afternoon at 4:00 on reel america, the 1965 "meet the

press" interview with martin luther king jr. find our complete television schedule at c-span.org and let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us at 202-626-3400. e-mail us at comments@c-span.org or send us a tweet at at @c-span #comments. "like" us on facebook, follow us on twitter. with live coverage of the u.s. house on c-span and the senate on c-span2 here on c-span3 we complement that coverage by showing you the most relevant congressional hearings and public affairs events. then on weekends, c-span3 is the home to american history tv with programs that tell our nation's story, including six unique series. the civil war's 150th anniversary, visiting battlefields and key events. american artifacts touring museums and historic sites to discover what artifacts reveal about america's past. history bookshelf, the best

known american history writers. the presidency looking at the policies and legacies of our nation's commanders in chief. lectures in history with top college professors delving into america's past. and our new series, reel america, featuring archival government and educational films from the 1930s through the '70s. c-span3, created by the cable tv industry and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. watch us in hd "like" us on face book and follow us on twitter. secret service director joseph clancy testified before the house oversight and government reform committee on tuesday. he was questioned at length about the events of march 4th when there was an alleged bomb threat at a white house gate followed by an incident at the same gate involving two secret service agents who drove into a white house barricade. utah republican chairs the oversight committee and elijah cummings is the ranking member.

committee on oversight and government reform will come to order. without objection the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. appreciate everybody being here.

reforming the united states secret service is not a partisan issue. ranking member cummings and i have presented a united front on this issue and i look forward to continuing this important work with him on both sides of the aisle. the most important mission for the secret service is protecting the president and his family. however, a litany of recent mishaps raise major concerns. in 2011 nobody recognized shots were fired at the white house until bullets were discovered by maintenance staff. it has been well publicized that secret service agents engaged in misconduct. in september of last year a security contractor with an arrest record rode in the elevator with the president in atlanta armed with a gun, completely unbeknownst to the president's details. a few days later a man armed with a knife, jumped the white house fence made it past the secret service well into the white house. now on march 4th the second in command of the president's detail drove his car through a crime scene involving a bomb

threat while the president was in the white house. this has to stop. the secret service has a zero fail mission to protect our president and his family. this is especially true for the president's protective detail or what is often referred to as the ppd. we need to understand why these incidents keep happening. this committee requested the special agent in charge of the ppd, robert buster, attend a bipartisan closed-door briefing regarding the incident. director clancy said no. the committee requested the supervisors on duty before and during the incident of march to testify today. but director clancy said no. we asked director clancy to turn over video footage of the incident and again the director said no. in our closed-door briefing last week director clancy was unable to adequately answer questions about the eventses of march 4th. instead, he asserted that by referring the matter to the

inspector general, he was unable to ask any questions of his own. but congress is also doing an investigation. to not do an investigation would be malpractice on our part. congress has a role, we have a duty, we have a responsibility to conduct our own investigation. by refusing to allow the witnesses we invited to testify with firsthand knowledge of the incident director clancy is keeping congress and the american people in the dark. on top of that, the secret service has missed every deadline to provide this committee with information, with no legitimate explanation as to why. it is unclear why director clancy's choosing at the start of his tenure to be so unhelpful to congress. while it was hopeful director clancy would assist congress, this does not appear to be the case. the march 4th incident is concerning on three major points.

number one the interference of crime scenes, scenes, by senior secret service personnel. number two allegations involving communications and disposition of senior secret service personnel. number three the agency's apparent botched response to a bomb threat while the president was in the white house. although the secret service has refused to provide video footage of the incident, the metropolitan d.c. police department has. initially i had indicated that i was frustrated about the lack of response by the metropolitan police department. this was based on information given to us by the secret service. i was critical of the chief and suggested that chief linear was going to get a nasty-gram from congress, which we sent. but i have nothing but thankfulness for her department and agency for swiftly responding to congress' request. we appreciate her, the men and

women who work at the metropolitan police department and their swift response to our request. it stands in great contrast from what we've seen from the secret service. now, we're going to show part of a video here that was provided to us by the metropolitan police department, but a few things before you see this. on march 4th @10:42 p.m. a woman drove her vehicle to the fence line at 15th street and left a package she claimed to be a bomb. secret service agents and officers at the scene confronted the suspect but were unable to apprehend per. the package unattended as traffic drove by for a long period of time. it took 11 minutes for the secret service to call metropolitan police department bomb squad. for 17 minutes, 17 minutes, traffic continued through the intersection and several pedestrians walked within feet of a potential bomb.

i don't understand how that happens. when the secret service finally did call, they failed to mention to the metro police department that it was an actual bomb threat rather than just a suspicious package. and it's been explained to us there's a difference. a difference in the response time and the approach that they take. you can understand how around the perimeter of the white house there are often items left unattended. but it's a wholly different situation when somebody comes up and places at the perimeter of the white house a package they claim to be an actual bomb. let me show this video and i'll try the best i can. we'll put this up on our youtube channel to try to describe what's happening. it's 10:30 -- roughly 10:20 plus at night. 15th street. there's the call. it pulls up. you can start to see the person who has dropped off the bomb.

then you'll see an officer come out and try to apprehend the person. he's actually been charged now with a variety of different crimes. the potential bomb really sits next to that building right there. we're doing time-lapse video but you can see the cars driving by and whatnot. then we're zooming in here and you can see the agents in question about what they were doing. this is a full 30 minutes after the initial would-be bomb was placed there. you can see there are some big cones or big barrels put out. again, we had two crime scenes at this point. the assault on the officer and then you have within just a couple of feet you can see they're actually bumping into that barricade there. that is not much of a barricade in my personal opinion, but driving right within a couple feet of this would-be bomb. which begs a lot of additional

questions. it takes the secret service and the metropolitan police department about an hour and 20 minutes to finally come to the conclusion that this is not a bomb and that this is a -- the scene is then rendered safe. an officer followed the suspect in her car. so we get to another part of the story, which begs a lot of questions. somebody drives up, drops off a would-be bomb. and then the secret service actually gets an officer behind this person. but they were mistakenly called off the pursuit when the secret service identified the wrong car as the suspect's. so actually right behind i can only imagine this officer saying, i've got this person in my sights. but instead of pulling this person over, maybe instead of going that extra step, gets waved off. they pursue another car who isn't actually the suspect.

30 minutes 30 minutes after the woman fled the scene the secret service finally issued a be on the lookout for a vehicle. metropolitan police department didn't know for 30 minutes what vehicle they were to be looking for. 30 minutes. the suspect was finally arrested three days later, 90 miles away, by a different police agency on an unrelated charges. the day before she was arrested she was interviewed by the secret service agent but the secret service claimed they were unable to arrest her and instead, canceled the lookout for the woman. back at the white house on march 4th two senior secret service agents, including mark connolly the president's second command in detail, disrupted the crime saern. they placed themselves, the colleague, the president and his family in potential danger by driving their government vehicle through a barricade within feet of a potential bomb.

under secret service policy video footage of the incident should have been retained however most of the footage evidently, according to the secret service, has mysteriously gone missing. i find this highly suspicious. in a briefing last week director clancy and deputy secretary played committee members two tapes of the incident that showed the same few seconds from two different angles. just a few seconds out of an incident that lasted more than an hour and 20 minutes. there were eight members there. three committee chairman several ranking members, four democrats, four republicans. the video clearly showed the agents moving the barricade aside with their car. i want to set aside for a second the concern that the secret service is only maintaining video footage for one of the most important buildings in our country for 72 hours. that absolutely makes no sense on any level to me.

because there are issues related to national security, the prosecution of the actual event and the basic ability to learn from past instances as we're having to deal with now. but based on the secret service policy, video footage of this incident should, nevertheless, been retained. we have two crime scenes that should have immediately been highlighted. yet an agency spokesperson told cnn, quote in the event of an operational security incident at the white house complex specific video footage is maintained for investigative and protective intelligence purposes. that would seem to make sense, but that's not what's happened here. yet director clancy and deputy secretary only showed two very limited views of the incident to the committee. does a potential bomb near the white house not qualify as a, quote, an operational security incident, end quote? if a potential bomb doesn't qualify, then what does?

these tapes should have been retained and this committee intends to find out why they were not. we were only shown seconds of a video for an incident that lasted mother more than an hour. director clancy, today we expect answers and we expect you to know them. we're nearly three weeks after the incident. to help you prepare for the hearing today, my staff reached out to your congressional affairs office to let you know what subjects we would be covering here today. your staff was fully briefed on what we expect you to know. i want to let you know that the "i don't know" strategy is not going to sit well with our committee. we look forward to your answering the questions and providing clarity on what happened march 4th. we do appreciate you being here. and i tell you that you have been personally very accessible and i greatly personally very much appreciate that. so, with that let me now recognize the ranking member, mr. cummings. >> thank you very much mr. chairman. and i thank you for calling this

hearing today. director clancy, welcome again. let me start off by saying director, there are moments in life that are and should be transformative moments. nrndz, there are moments in all of our lives where something happens, it may very well be negative. usually it is. and then we have to pause for a moment and learn from it. and correct it. and if we do not correct it at that moment in my 64 years on earth, i've discovered it usually gets worse. i am here to tell you that we are at such a moment. and the sad part about it is these moments seem to keep coming.

usually in life it's one moment or two. but they seem to just keep coming and coming. and i tell you i have great concerns. and i'm glad this is a bipartisan effort. because this is bigger than us. this is bigger than the secret service. this is about the security of the most powerful person in the world. so, this is not -- this is -- i know this will not get down to a partisan battle. will not get down to a got ya. but this is about us trying to do our job. your job and the great men and women of the secret service's job is to guard the president's family, our former president and other protectees. our job is to make sure you do your job.

and make sure that you and the agents are accountable. i must tell you, i was disappointed to find out we will not hear from the other secret service witnesses the committee invited to testify here today. director clancy, i have the greatest respect for you and your service to our country. your job is crucial. your reputation is exceptional and sound. and your desire to protect your agents and officers against unwarranted intrusion is admiral. but as i've said to you before, f we are going to error, let us error on the side of the safety and security of the president of the united states of america. and so we wanted to speak with these witnesses for a very simple reason. according to your own testimony,

you did not know about this incident until five days after it happened. you yourself have said that is unacceptable. and, again as i said, we have those transformative moments. and that's one symptom of the problem, saying that we need to do some transforming. your predecessor, in my conversations with her one of the things she said was that quite often she did not get information, she did not get complete information, she got inaccurate information and in some instances got no information. something is wrong with that picture. it was wrong with that one. and obviously there's something wrong here. with all due respect i have to

say how disappointed i was with your initial letter on friday. it simply announced you would be the only witness today without providing any reason for the other witnesses not testifying. no other committee is doing more on this issue than ours. we're trying to conduct our work in a responsible bipartisan manner. we really have no room for error. and if we're going to error, we err on the side of the safety of the president. but when we receive a response, that rejects our request with no explanation at all, it's difficult to view that response as respectful. which i know is not your intent. i understand that. for these reasons i was hardened to receive your letter yesterday in which you outline your specific concerns with the public testimony of agents charged with protecting the president.

i also appreciate your offer to work with this committee to examine other ways to provide us with the information we need to fulfill our constitutional oversight responsibilities. of course, we all understand there is an ongoing inspector general investigation of this incident. we respect that. the i.g. has informed us that he will be moving quickly and should be able to answer key questions in weeks, not months. we recognize the inspector general's investigation could result in recommendations for disciplinary action. and the last thing we want to do is interfere with that process. but keep in mind what i said, if we're going to error, we must error on the side of the safety and security of the president. that is why the chairman and i have committed to consulting

with the i.g. directly before taking any significant action that could impact this work. director clancy my most significant concern and has always been and remains today thaw did not know about this incident and nobody at the entire agency told you about it. there's something awfully wrong with that. five days, five days five days, went by while you were in the dark. last year when the former director of the secret service julian pearson sat in the same chair you're sitting in, i warned her she was not getting the information she needed to do her job. i alerted her that agents and officers believed they were better off staying silent instead of raising their concerns up the chain. i informed her that there were

agents that felt more comfortable coming to members of the congress of the united states than talking to people who were the higher-ups although the secret service. something wrong with the picture. and i lamented an environment at the secret service that would allow these deficiencies to continue. yet, that appears to be exactly what happened here. i believe that when the chain of command is broken, when the chain of command is broken, there is no command. it's like a body without a head. and when there is no command there is vulnerability. again, that vulnerability goes to the safety of the president of the united states of america. so, let me make something very clear. this is not business as usual. this is not just another oversooilt hearing about just

another agency. i admire this president greatly. i admire him for his challenges, the challenges he's overcome to be president. the accomplishments he's achieved since then. the principles he stands for on behalf of our country and the world. and the contribution he's made to our nation's history. i also admire the people -- our former presidents and their families. i want to make sure, and all of us want to make sure they're protected. i don't want you to take this personally. this is about us doing our job. you have to be accountable to us, but your job is, of course, to guard the president. and so i do not want anything to happen to him. not under my watch. not under this watch. so this will not be about politics. it cannot be. it cannot be about headlines or

unnecessary disputes that contribute nothing to the solution. we must come together in a nonpartisan way to take concrete steps both publicly and privately to turn this agency around. again, this is a transformative moment. if we fail to do that in had this moment, it can only get worse. the agents and officers of the secret service risk their lives on behalf of this great nation. they are great human beings great public servants. and they deserve an agency that they can be proud of. one of the things that has concerned me greatly is the nons e-mail you got to us. would somebody put this up? this e-mail -- you're familiar with it, are you not? and this e-mail concerns me. says last wednesday night the uniform division established a crime scene special post 15 at the white house after a package was thrown at an officer. the officer was told the package was a bomb.

so they taped off the area and made it a crime scene. then at some point from wfo ppd and ppd drove through the crime scene tape. officers at the scene said they were both extremely intoxicated. they were coming home from ed donovan's retirement dinner. they apparently flipped on the lights on their government vehicles to go around the roadblocks. then they nudged the barrels close to closing the post with their government vehicles. then -- then were waving their white house passes around, confused as to why the post was evacuated. ud officers were going to arrest both of them but the ud watch commander said not you. apparently the whole incident was captured on video from inside the jail cell.

what i don't understand is this a lot of people got this e-mail. a lot of them got it. but you didn't. that is a problem. but you know what really bothers me? as i read this -- i kept reading this e-mail this morning over and over and over. you know what i concluded? it appears that we have an agency at war against itself. the idea that in an organization like this, that somebody would create this kind of document to bring this kind of disruption when they are supposed to be guarding the president of the united states of america. we are better than that! and some kind of way, we have to take advantage of this transformative moment. if we don't, it can only get worse. with that, i yield back. >> now recognize mr. desantis of

florida. >> thank you mr. chairman. the website secret service lays out the vision, that's to uphold the tradition of excellence and investigative and protective mission through a dedicated highly trained, diverse workforce that employs progressive technology and promotes professionalism. notwithstanding that statement, the secret service has been falling short of that standard. and i think the chairman did a good job of enumerating some of the problems we've seen in recent years. we are here to examine this most recent incident. and i got to say, i join the chairman and-n expressing my disappointment of the lack of cooperation. we wanted to speak with witnesses. we wanted to have information sooner. and i think that's not the way this is going to be productive. this is a very important role that the agency plays. not only in protecting our leaders against threats, foreign and domestic, but that's part of

a larger mission to protect the integrity of our government and to make sure that elections are honored and that the people who are elected to those high positions are safe. and i think to do that effectively, you have got to have a system that has robust accountability. and i think that's the questions we're looking at today shlgs, say, okay, where is the accountability in the agency? it seems throughout the whole saga of the different problems there's not swift accountability. i think that's going to make it more difficult to get the agency where we all want it to be. i commend the chairman mr. mr. chaffetz, mr. cummings, and mr. lynch for their diligence in ensuring those that carry out this important mission are given the tools they need to carry out their responsibilities. we want high standards we want accountability. that's important. and i think the american people want nothing less. and i look forward to director clancy's testimony. and i yield back.

>> i thank the gentleman. will now recognize the ranking member on subcommittee mr. lynch from massachusetts for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want like to thank ranking member clancy as well as chairman desantis. we appreciate the fact we're working together on this. this hearing is to examine the continuing lapses in security involving the u.s. secret service. i'd also like to thank director clancy for being here and to testify this morning. i have the utmost respect for mr. clancy, but have i to agree with the chairman, mr. chaffetz and ranking member and mr. mr. desantis, the fact you were not notified of this incident for five days concerning your two agents is totally unacceptable. and it shows a deep problem within the organization that we have to deal with. at the outset, i'd like to notice that the purpose that we're having this hearing today

is not to disparage our dedicated secret service workforce. rather, this bipartisan investigation into recent security incidents at the white house and other secret service protected locations and events is founded in our genuine concern over the safety of the presidents, his wife, his daughters, his mother-in-law and white house personnel. regretly, systematic challenges, antd quated security protocols and entrenched agency culture have given rise to glaring gaps in the security and the critical protection mission of the secret service demands we make every effort to address them. on the heels of the white house fence-jumping incident that occurred on september -- in september of 2014 and reported gunshots near the delaware residence of the vice president in january 015, we've now learned about two security incidents that occurred on the white house grounds on the night of march 4th that, again, call into question the effectiveness of existing security protocols security technology, information

sharing and post-incident review at the secret service. in briefing this committee on march 17th regarding the alleged interference of two secret service agents with a live bomb threat investigation at the white house, the secret service played us two brief and seemingly incomplete video clips of a slow-moving vehicle bumping gently into a plastic barrier that -- those videos were taken from almost identical angles and contained absolutely no audio. in response to member requests that he provide us with additional videos of the incident, director clancy revealed that the secret service routinely overwrights secret service video footage after 72 hours. after that director clancy also informed us he did not receive noifkz of the alleged interference until five days later on march 9th. the security footage in question was reportedly purged two full days before the director even found out about the security incident. that is simply unacceptable.

and it tells me we need a stem to stern review of our security technology policy at the white house. director, you invited us over, members of the committee, to review the command post for the surveillance of the white house. and i know for a fact, we have full spectrum review and surveillance over that area. we probably have five or six cameras at least that would have given us useful information regarding this incident. and as the chairman pointed out, we have overlapping incidents. so we have a bomb threat, an active bomb threat while the president is in the white house, his family is in the white house. we have an active bomb threat. and then we have an interference by these two agents during that bomb threat, during that incident. and we purge the tapes. we purge the tapes.

that active bomb threat against the white house was something that should have raised red flags with personnel from the secret service. it should have been on everyone's mind. i know that multiple e-mails went out to supervisory personnel. everyone knew this was a bomb threat. and yet we went ahead, that's what i'm hearing so far, we went ahead and purged the tapes surrounding that 72 -- excuse me surrounding that bomb threat to the white house within 72 hours. we destroyed the evidence. and that completely -- that is just mind-boggling that we might do something like that. and now i've got a lot of questions. i know the members of the committee do as well. but as a frame of reference the inadequacy of a 72-hour video stap reconvention policy, my own state of massachusetts rishz state and municipal agencies to retain their videotapes for 30

days under the state public record statutes. that's why agencies ranging from the massachusetts bay transportation authority to the boston housing authority have a one-month video storage policy in place. in addition under its current memorandum of agreement with the federal transportation security administration regarding the use of consolidated camera surveillance systems at logan international airport, the massachusetts port authority also has expressly agreed to retain captured images for 30 days. that's at the request of a federal agency. we retain that for 30 days. moreover, local educational institutions sufficient as tufts university, university of massachusetts, have also implemented 30-day retention policies for the campus security cameras. in addition, i have a number of kindergartens in my district that retain because of the security interests of those children, they have a 30-day policy. you know, i have to tell you, and we've -- i've said this

before you know, my local store 24 has a better surveillance system than we have at the white house. that's a sad -- that's a sad statement of affairs. and that's been the -- that's been because of a number of directors going back beyond your own service. so, there's a lot of questions to be answered here. i'm going to let the rest of my statement go. i appreciate the chairman's indulgence and i yield back the remainder of my time. >> thank the gentleman. i will hold the record open for five legislative days for any members who would like to submit a written statement. we welcome today our witness, the honorable joseph p. clancy, director of the united states secret service. before i go forward let me say to members of this committee, i do not believe that the presence of mr. clancy alone is sufficient to achieve the goals of this hearing today. it is the committee's intention to bring forward a series of people in transcribed

interviews. we would prefer to have done this a different way. the secret service has refused our ability to do that, but the people involved in these incidents should know they'll be invited by this committee, both sides will be present for transcribed interviews as we conduct this further. the secret service refuses to let other invited witnesses testify. the committee has questions. when we issued these letters and invitations for these individuals to appear did they receive those invitations or was the secret service prompted? did homeland security become involved? we have a lot of confess about why those individuals who were asked to appear are not sitting here today. we do expect to close the loop with these witnesses in the future, whether that be at a follow-up hearing, but as i said, it's the intention that we will most likely do transcribed interviews through this process. with that said, mr. clancy, we do appreciate you being here.

pursuit to committee rules, all witnesses are to be sworn before they testify. if you will please rise and raise your right hand. >> do you solemnly swear or affirm the testimony you're about to give will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth? >> do i. >> thank you. let the record reflect that the witness answered in the affirmative. mr. clancy we will right now recognize you for your opening statement. please know your entire written statement will be part of the record, but we're pretty lenient on the time. please share with this committee your thoughts and perspectives. mr. clancy. >> good morning chairman chaffetz ranking member cummings and distinguished members of the committee. thank you for the opportunity to be here to discuss recent allegations of misconduct on march 4, 2015. and the agency's progress in fulfilling the recommendations of the independent u.s. secret service protective mission panel. as director, i'm honored to lead the men and women of this important agency through this challenging time.

with respect to the recent allegations, i personally became aware of the incident on march 9th. when i received a phone call from a former agent informing me of an anonymous e-mail that was circulating. on that same date, i determined that the allegations should be referred to department of homeland security's office of the inspector general. i made this decision because allegations of misconduct involving employees at the gs-15 and higher level must be referred to the oig in accordance with departmental policy. i trust the oig's investigation will be thorough. i have committed the secret service's full cooperation to the oig and eagerly await the findings of their investigation. the fact that i did not learn of this allegation until five days after it has-s said to have occurred infuriates me. this is unacceptable. i called my senior staff together the week before last.

i made clear my expectation for prompt notification of allegationless of misconduct that could impact our mission or violate the agency's standards of conduct. if it is determined that any of our employees failed to report information about this alleged incident, they will be held accountable. our mission is too important for this to happen. it undermines my leadership and i won't stand for it. i am resolved to holding people accountable for their actions, but i want to make clear that i do not have the ability to simply terminate employees based solely on allegations of misconduct. this is not because i'm being lenient but because the agency's ability to take action is controlled by title 5 of the united states code which provides federal government employees with certain statutory due process rights. i must respect these rights and the procedures congress has put in place to preserve them.

as it stands the next step in this process is to wait for the issuance of the oig report at which point we'll determine the appropriate disciplinary actions consistent with our established table of penalties. once again if the oig investigation reveals misconduct, those involved will be held accountable. i've personally reviewed video footage from the evening of march 4th with this committee. there was no crash. the video shows a vehicle entering the white house complex at a very slow side and pushing aside a plastic barrel. there is no damage to the vehicle. however, many people have expressed serious concerns that the available footage from the night does not provide a full picture relative to the alleged misconduct. while the primary function of the camera systems at the white house complex is for -- i share

the concerns of this committee that more video footage from the night of march 4th was not preserved. after receiving consent from the oig, the secret service contacted the manufacturer of the digital storage unit and leveraging air capability and forensics to make every attempt to recover additional video footage from that night. although it redates my appointment as director, secret service has been to retain camera footage for a period of 72 hours. this practice concerns me. therefore, i have directed that the video storage period be increased to seven days immediately. i also directed my staff to explore fees ikt of further expanding this time frame while being mindful to concerns of privacy. i will touch briefly on each of

these three areas identified in the report. first, training and personnel. second, technology, perimeter security and operations. and third, leadership. regarding training and personnel, i have consistently held that a primary focus of mine has been to increase the critical staffing in the secret service to meet the demands of the mission. and to incorporate regular and consistent training to sharpen skills, ensure preparedness at all times. the secret service is expected to exceed its hiring goals for this fiscal year and maintain this pace for fiscal year 2016. we have also fully completed integrated training for officers and specialty teams within the white house branch. and made improvements with respect to the amount of training received during fourth shifts by agents on protective details. with respect to technology and perimeter security recommendations, the secret service is in the midst of a multi-phase project to replace the current fence around the white house. the goal of this project is to

mitigate security concerns identified by the panel, including delaying potential intruders to get secret service personnel more time to react. the selection of a final fence option will be followed by a design, procurement and construction phases. procurement and construction phases. as discussed in the classified briefings provided to this committee, the secret service acknowledges the need for interim measures during this process and has conducted initial testing research and development to that end. finally, with respect to leadership, i am moving to rebuild, restructure and re-invigorate the secret service, including elevating and empowering those with specialized professional skills within our civilian force. by ensuring our people have the necessary resources by developing budgets from the ground up and utilizing a mission-based approach. in closing, i would like to make clear i am proud of our workforce and would be remiss if i did not recognize that the vast majority of these men and

whimper form their duties with honor and distinction. they deserve strong leadership clear and consistent policies, and appropriate resources to support the important work they do every day. it is my life's work to ensure they get it. i thank the committee for this opportunity and welcome any questions you have at this time. >> thank you. now recognize the gentleman from south carolina, mr. gowdy for five minutes. >> thank you mr. chairman. director clancy do you believe congress has a constitutional right to provide oversight over the secret service? >> yes, sir. >> do you believe this committee has every single bit of video footage available from that evening? >> sorry, sir. >> does this committee have all

available video footage from that evening? >> it does not, sir. >> why not? >> sir, we had provided that footage, video that we have to this committee. >> all of it. >> we have shown two clips. we have not shown all of it. >> that's not my question director. you just said congress has a constitutional responsibility to provide oversight. you just agreed with me that ranking member cummings and chairman chaffetz have the best interests of the president and the agency in mind. so why is it you will not turn over all video footage to this committee? >> congressman. we will so. all video at any time day or night, that this committee would like to review the footage that we have. we have done that in. in fact the chairman was the first i believe to see this video. >> with all due respect, that's not true. go ahead, mr. ghou dyowdy. >> if i have to correct the record, i'd like to correct it. >> i would like to yield to the gentleman from utah because i

was under the misapprehension apparently that this committee was not in possession of all available video from that night. >> that's correct. they are not in possession of the video. but we did allow the chairman to view the video. >> you've shown us less than one minute of video. >> yes, sir. yes, sir. >> well back to my question. will you make all available video? and i say "available," because we're going to get to it in a second all of it was not preserved. will you make all available video available to this committee? >> we will make all video available to this committee for your review at any time, day or night. >> will you make a copy of it available so we can retain custody as opposed to simply showing it to us? >> i will not release a copy of this video at this point. >> why not? >> the oig has an ongoing investigation. >> you think the oig's

responsibilities supersede those off congress? >> sir i know that they have an ongoing investigation. zpl . >> well, can't you have simultaneous ongoing investigations? why can't congress provide oversight while the oig is investigating. >> why do you have to pick and choose? >> sir again, i think we have one initial investigation from the oig. we've given them film to look at. >> you understand the responsibility of the ig is very different from the responsibility of congress. congress determines funding among other things. the ig does not. >> yes, sir. >> so those are not exclusive. why can't congress investigate what's in its jurisdiction while the ig does what's in its jurisdiction? >> congressman, i'm sure after the oig's investigation -- >> i don't want to wait until after, because that makes me think that you believe that congress' constitutional responsibility to provide oversight is subserve yebtvrve enter

to the ig. certain will you you can't believe that. >> the ongoing investigation the secret service has as well regarding the protective intelligence case, we have an individual who committed a crime, made a threat and that investigation is also going on at this time within the secret service. >> how will providing that video footage to congress jeopardize that ongoing investigation? >> that -- >> with precision, how will it? >> that video shows the actions of the individual who would be accused of a criminal act. >> i get that. my question is how will providing that to mr. cull mings and cummings and mr. chaffetz jeopardize an ongoing investigation. with specificity. >> i am happy to show that video all day and be available at all hours of the day and night to show that video. but at this point we cannot release that video. >> that's the video that is available. the video that is not available,

will you agree with me there are at least two potential crime scenes at play on the evening of march 4th? at least two. an there is an assault on an officer and a suspicious package. >> that is correct. zpl why would the video not be preserved as part of that ongoing investigation that you just cited as the reason you can't give the video to congress? why wouldn't you preserve it? >> the process -- my understanding of the process is that the watch commander on site relays back the incident that he is -- the incident commander for. he calls back to our joint operation center and says we do have an incident here we have a suspicious package. preserve the video from this incident. >> director, i'm out of time but i want you to consider for just a moment the dueling narratives that you have just portrayed. number one we're not going to give the video is that does exist to congress because its

investigation is subservience to the ig investigation. that's narrative number one. narrative number two is you're not even going to preserve video that could be used in an investigation of two potential crimes. did i hear that right? >> we did preserve the video the footage from the incident as those in the joint operation center viewed it. >> are you familiar with -- >> the gentleman's time is expired. >> some of my time was taken by the chairman but that is the chairman's prerogative and i would of course not ask for any more. >> the chairman obviously made the right ruling. >> i yield back. >> good decision. i'll recognize the gentlewoman from the district of columbia for five months. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i think, mr. clancy, that you

understand that the anger the outrage that you hear really comes from this notion that you are a zero failure agency. we don't expect that, frankly, of most federal officials. i was really surprised to see that you were just now -- i'm reading from your testimony, page 3, sent an agency-wide memorandum saying that they have to report allegations, apparently right away. when, for example, before you came to the agency you knew of the white house incident where they actually shot into the white house and they learned about that -- the secret service learned about it perhaps months later when an attendant found these bullets. it seems to me that the very first order you should have been given is please let me know. don't put me on the hot seat of not knowing. i say that because i think the committee did the right thing. it began at the right place with leadership. so we say we want aed new leadership.

you're the new leadership. it said we want an expert panel. we had that expert panel. now i think we ought to go -- i realize you've not been in place for a very long time, but i'd like to focus on the men and women under you because i don't think there's been any focus except for that panel. and that panel really did focus on what i was amazed to hear, that people were working sometimes 14 days and with a day off, if they got it but it could be denied. and that -- and i tried to link this to what i knew about the secret service a kind of serial misconduct. you know, in colombia, for example. in the netherlands. all of it drunken agents. well see, i don't think that the secret service is a bunch of bums. so i've got to look at what is

happening to these men and women. i understand -- tell me something about -- are these people being trained or are these people kind of letting it all out? and it looks like some of that is happening. and nobody's spoken up. and if somebody doesn't speak up, i'm not sure that this misconduct is not going to continue. this -- this was also a drunken incident. then i learned that in terms of training, there's barely any training going on at the secret service. there were eight special agent basic classes in three years, '08, '09, and '10. by 2012 there were zero. by 2013 there was one. the panel said that you needed staff urgently for starters. what is the